Good Wednesday Morning, Fellow Seekers.
When he pitched his eighth, and final, budget to state lawmakers earlier this month, Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf included a familiar request: That the Republican-controlled General Assembly finally boost Pennsylvania’s minimum wage from the current $7.25 an hour, where it’s been parked for more than a decade, to $12 an hour by July 1, with the eventual goal of raising it to $15 an hour.
But even as he’s sought legislative authorization for a pay hike for all Pennsylvania workers, Wolf quietly has been taking executive action to raise wages for state workers under his control, and for other employees impacted by state government.
Last month, Wolf’s office announced it was raising the minimum wage for commonwealth employees to $15 an hour. That came on top of a March 2016 executive order raising wages for state workers to $10.15 an hour. The order again was amended in July 2018 to boost the wage to $12 an hour.
And this week, the administration moved to boost wages for tipped workers, such as restaurant servers with an update to the decades-old state rules that govern how employers can pay them.
There’s still a long road to go before it becomes the law of the land, but the action by the administration was a good first step.
Notably, the proposed rules increase the amount that a...
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